BitterSweet Remembrance
by Arsenic Kisses
Summary: Erik finds himself at Heavans door. But why? He wonders. Going through his life one major memory at a time, Erik must learn that deep down there is more to himself than the evil he thought he knew.
1. Death, dost thou have a name?

I always wanted to do a story about Erik going to Heaven. Let me warn you of somthing at this moment though. Do not. I repeat DO NOT bitch at me about my vision of Heaven and God. Don't reveiw me and tell me I am spurting lies and blasphemy. It's my story and I am not following any holy book. Thank you. Now, please, Enjoy!

Disclaimer: Nothing is mine except my storyline.

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The man's body writhed with pain. His knuckles were pale with tension as his fingers curled into angular fists. His chest heaved with hollow gasps as he staggered toward the doorway of his bedchamber. Step by step, he moved slowly toward it; That abomination of a bed. He made an attempt to give a wry chuckle, but it just cause blood to ooze out of his mouth's down turned corners.

The coffin was sitting as it always had upon the dais, caddy corner under plush crimson hangings. His hands gripped the side of the black lacquer box, supporting his body. Taking his last bit of strength, he flung himself inside the casket. He wiped his mouth with crisp white gloves, blood smearing metallic tasting lines across his hand.

" I've been preparing myself for this for as long as I can recall. Now that it has come to this last instant of my existence, why am I so fearful?" The man's voice, despite the raspy quality from hacking and wheezing, sounded heaven sent. He ran his fingers over his twisted face, sweat collecting in the threads of his glove.

" What lies beyond this?" the older gentleman mused aloud. He never gave the afterlife a passing thought. Now, it consumed him. His chest gave a enormous lurch and blood expectorated from his malformed lips.

The Phantom of the Opera.

The infamous Opera Ghost.

Erik, was dead.

Erik opened his eyes to find himself standing in a tunnel. His pupils dilated as he focused on the end of the passage, a warm white light shining brightly. He observed his person, everything just as it had always been, before glanced behind him and seeing nothing but infinite darkness. Turning around, he focused on the light and began walking towards it.

The warmth caressed every fiber of his being as he walked, the light slowly turning into a place, with lush green meadows the zoological gardens only dreamed of having. The sky was permanently set during the early evening hours, the stars and the moon more luminescent than Erik could remember.

All manner of beast lived in harmony and he found himself wandering over to a Siamese cat that looked much like his Ayesha. It was perched upon a rock, blue crystalline eyes leering at him. He knelt next to the feline, his gloved hand reaching out to caress it's head. The cat complied to his gesture and purred with a luscious low rumble.

" The Pride of Siam, I sure the _Shah in Shah_ would say of you, my friend."

" He did once, yes." came a voluptuous voice. Erik's hand involuntarily shot backwards and the cat smiled, it's whiskers flattening against it's head in the process.

" No doubt you are surprised. I would be if I were you, Angel."

" Angel? Ahh...But, how could you know that?"

" I was the Shah's cat at the time you served the Persian court as, well" the cat laughed, stretching her long body out across the flat stone. " many things... I believe Master's mother called you her ' Angel of Destruction.'"

" Doom. Angel of..Doom."

" Oh, I beg your pardon, Angel." she lifted her paw to her mouth, observing his pained eyes.

" Where am I, exactly?" Asked the former Phantom. The cat sat up in a casual manner.

"Have you not figured it out yet?"

" Regretfully, I have not the patience to think it through." he bitterly replied, folding his hands together and letting his chin rest upon them.

" I see," she remarked. Wrapping her long brown tail about his wrists, she pulled him closer.

" You are in the part of Heaven where animal souls come to rest." Erik's eyelashes fluttered, thinking it highly impossible animals could be allowed in Heaven.

" How? Animals don't have an immortal soul. Well, that's what that idiot priest told me." The cat's tail uncoiled itself and brushed his chin.

" Sometimes, people can be mistaken. And technically, this isn't Heaven. It's the outskirts of it. The gates are that way." She remarked knowledgeably, gesturing in the direction with her head.

He looked at her awkwardly in response to the fact she contradicted herself. She simply replied that it was Heaven for animals and it was enough, as far as she was concerned. Erik caressed her head once more and thanked her, before following the path she had set him on.

" _Heaven? I don't belong here..." _He mused scornfully, walking briskly up a staircase of grand marble steps. Golden veins ran through them and they seemed to become more defined as he ascended. The early evening hours slowly turned to a rich sky of crimson and salmon pink. The stars turned gold in coloration and he admired their beauty.

At the top of the stairs there was a grand and opulent golden gate. It's rods twisted and curved, forming a intricate design that took the his breath away, if he were alive and had any such breath to spare.

" **Erik, welcome child."**came a reverberating voice that sounded neither male nor female. Erik's eyes shot this way and that, looking for the source of the voice.

" **My child, I am everywhere yet nowhere at all. Quite like you were in that opera house."**

" You know my thoughts?" he asked cautiously.

" **I know everything about you. Erik, you are in Heaven, and I am God."** Erik's hands flew up in distaste of this cruel joke.

" **I do not jest or poke fun at you, Erik."** God said.

" Oh, no? Alright then, where is he? Where is the Devil himself? Where is he in this falsely created salvation I wished for all my life! Come on, you wretched bastard. I'll spit upon you and your false promises!"

God fell silent and Erik was left panting and brooding at Heaven's gate.

" **My son, are you finished? Now listen to me. You were never a horrible or damnation worthy soul, Erik. You were just misguided."**

" Why?... explain all of it to me... Tell me why."

" **Come inside and I'll tell you all you need to know."**

The gates before him slowly swung apart, allowing him entrance. Erik took slow steps, skeptic and pained by what he still thought was a horrid joke. He still felt he would be cast into a fiery hell at any moment.

His eternal pyre.

His well deserved undoing.

The undoing that Christine, in all her innocent mortality could not have even fathomed or been capable of bringing on. He was sure that the pain would have been the same though. Suddenly all he could think of was her. Her soft, tear stained face, framed by those bountiful auburn brown curls. It ached, the love he felt for her. She was all he ever wanted. And he couldn't have her. He didn't even know that she was alright. He didn't say goodbye.

" **She is fine, I assure you. Please, my child, enter the gates to My Kingdom." **

An endless amount of time in a fiery hell or no, he sighed a deep sigh of contempt and stepped through the gate.

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**Yay! And it shall only get better from here on in!Woot! Please reveiw!**

**Much love,**

**Bella**


	2. Mother's love and Fatherly Affections

Chapter 2, just for you :)

Disclaimer: I do not own Erik or any other character from PotO.

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Erik shielded his eyes from a bombardment of bright light, groaning audibly from displeasure.

" Is this what Heaven is? A constant parade of blinding light?" He mumbled, and the Heavenly being chuckled. Opening his eyes, he saw a place he had all but forgotten.

His attic bedroom in his childhood home, as he had left it before fleeing. The mirrors set up in a maze of light before him, he squinted in remembrance.

" What is the meaning of this?" He asked, more bemused than enraged.

" _**Erik, in order to ease your harsh feelings, I'm going to show you all the things you have misunderstood in your life."**_

Erik looked about, picking up his old violin and plucking the strings. The room seemed smaller than it had when he was a child. When he was young, it was such a vast and empty space, and now it was nothing but a hole in the wall. Erik heard pounding up the stairs and the turning of the doorknob, his back arching like a stunned cat.

"_**Don't fret. No one can see you. It's just a time line of your life I am showing you now."**_

The door flew open and the figure of a young woman came inside. Her brown hair seemed faded and messy with sleep as she searched high and low with farther faded eyes.

"Erik!" Cried her voice, it's musical quality apparent in her sorrow. She clung to a handkerchief, her small hands beginning to pop with the veins of an age that she was not.

"Mother?" Erik whimpered, his long arms at his side in equanimity.

" Why...." Madeleine sunk to the wooden floor. Her slippered feet made a dainty scuffing sound, " Erik, my darling boy, why?"

" 'My darling boy'? Who is she trying to fool?"

" _**Hush" **_God said.

" I've frightened you away... If only I had realized sooner.... If only I could have been... Oh, Erik...." She seemed to wither right in front of his eyes. His hands reached out to touch but fell almost as instantaneously as they had rose.

" What made her change?" Erik asked of God, who's presence seemed tense in compassion and anguish.

" _**She realized after all her wrong, she loved you. That you were not a monster but her son."**_ The Almighty intoned, it's voice soothing in it's androgyny. Erik watched her as she touched his bed sheets softly then suddenly recoiled, as if she seemed unfit to touch anything in the place he once dwelled. She walked despairingly toward the door, looking down as if she had heard their dog, Sasha. The dog had died the night before, and Madeleine whimpered pitifully as she closed the door and locked it. Erik's face portrayed a mixture of sadness and disbelief which looked mildly of disgust.

" _**Shall we continue on to your next memory?" **_God inquired, seeming to gear up of a change of scenery.

" I am not enjoying this." He pronounced sourly, his arms crossed casually in front of him. Erik could feel God smiling, but felt no inclination to smile back. Then the room seemed to be swept away like the desert sands in a brutish wind, only to resettle into a scene that was familiar.

" Italy. That...it's Giovanni's home..." Erik remarked, standing the garden as he looked all the way up to the roof from below. There, he saw the crumbling stones that Erik had said needed to be replaced over and over again during his stay with the old man.

" _Inside, Erik. Go inside."_ God urged. Erik made brisk, elongated steps to the front door. Knocking wasn't necessary so Erik opened the door and stepped inside quietly. There, he saw the house as he had known it. Scanning the room, Erik spotted them, Giovanni and his youngest daughter Luciana by the basement door.

" I want to know him, Papa!" insisted the brat, tears ruining the front of her dress.

" Luciana, you must leave the boy in peace. He doesn't want to be bothered, especially by girls with no thoughts in their heads but selfish ones!" Giovanni retorted harshly. They stared at each other for a moment.

" Upstairs, darling." he stated more tenderly, to which the girl responed with obedience. Erik wanted to go to the man.

**" You thought of his as a father, didn't you?"**

" I assume that question is rhetorical, .... What should I call you?"

**_"Whatever you wish to, Erik."_** came it's reply. Erik thought about it but had no answer for God at the moment. Giovanni sat by the fire and picked up his glass of wine he had abandoned hours ago and drained it throughly. Erik placed a hand on Giovanni's shoulder, knowing he wouldn't feel the difference.

" Thank you, Sir." Erik managed, knowing that he wanted to say so much more. God called Erik back outside and with one last glance at the house he once called home, they were spirited away to another point in Erik's life.

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New chapter to come :)

Writing away,

Bella DeMuerte


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